Portal 2: Stalemate Partners
by portal 3 will be real in
Summary: What would happen if Wheatley didn't betray Chell and escaped the facility together? How would they deal with their new life? Can they survive the Post-Combine world? This alternate reality tries to tell the story of the two Stalemate Partners! Contains spoilers for Portal Stories: Mel, Portal 1/2 and the Half-Life series!
1. Stalemate Resolution

**PORTAL 2: STALEMATE PARTNERS**

_Chapter One: Stalemate __Resolution_

"Wow! Check me out partner! We did it!" Wheatley shouted in excitement. Chell nodded with a slight grin on her face. They really did do it, didn't they? The goddess herself had been deactivated, every threat has been eliminated. No neurotoxin, no turrets, nothing.

"I'm in control of the _whole_ facility now!" Wheatley went on. But he still just couldn't believe it. For all his existence he was told he was useless, but now HE had the control. HE could prove them wrong, even though most of them were dead.

He kept on rambling, almost forgetting about the escape lift. The surface was only a few moments away. Everything Chell has ever longed for. With a big smile Chell stepped in the elevator.

"Look how small you are down there! Very tiny and insignificant" he said. Chell felt a bit insulted, but it made sense. She would probably be amazed too, if she suddenly were bigger than everybody else.

The lift started and Wheatley kept talking about the new body and began laughing maniacally. The lift stopped and went back down. "Actually, why do we have to leave right now?" Wheatley asked. However, he wasn't actually expecting an answer, she never answered. But to his surprise, Chell spoke. "Why do we have to leave right now? Are you serious? Please Wheatley, you wanted to get out too! Trust me, the surface is better than anything you could get down here!"

"The surface? I don't care for the surface anymore, darling. You don't understand this feeling! I'm a bloody genius! I- I can do this stuff! I am finally able to show the world, that I am not incompetent!"

"She is right, you know." GLaDOS interfered in their little debate.

"Sorry, what?" he asked with a slight confusion. "Even though I am surprised myself to agree with her, the surface is way better for you than this body. You aren't made for it. You'll always be a moron. You are designed to be one" GLaDOS kept going.

"What? I am desi- What do you mean?" Wheatley asked in an angry tone.

"Please stop! Wheatley, you are not a moron. You don't have to prove that! But please, just let us get out of here!" Chell cried, in fear of her freedom being taken away from her. The new body definitely didn't do him any good. Wheatley felt that too. _Something_ was overwriting something in him. His priorities were changed. He didn't like that. 'WHAT AM I DOING?' he screamed internally. After a short pause, Wheatley came to a conclusion.

"Okay, fair enough. I am sorry. I am starting the elevator in 20 seconds. You have to… err... manually override my connection to the mainframe. I don't know if you got that, maybe it was a bit too technical… Okay, again for you: Plug me out and run for the elevator."

"20 seconds until elevator department" a male voice announced.

"It won't work." GLaDOS commented. "Just ignore her, she is worthless now." Wheatley responded with slight amusement in his voice.

The doors opened again, Chell ran to Wheatley. As she tried to unplug him Wheatley screamed at the top of his non-existent lungs. But, to his surprise nothing happened. Chell was too weak to pull him out. GLaDOS laughed. "What, did you really think this would work? Plenty of people had tried it after my awakening. And they were stronger than you."

"Okay, okay. Wait. Freeze countdown. I didn't think this through." Wheatley sighed.

"Countdown offline." responded the male voice.

"Just like always. You never think things through." GLaDOS commented with anger but also with a slight tone of amusement. Chell went to GLaDOS and kicked her. This wasn't the right time for these kind of things.

"Okay, maybe we'll find another way. Do you see anything? Maybe an alternate core?" Wheatley asked, trying so hard not to get overwritten again. Chell looked around. GLaDOS was out of question, of course. But behind one of these panels she saw a bright orange light twitching from left to right. Chell approached the light. Wheatley asked where she was going but was interrupted, as he saw what Chell found. "Oh sorry, am I troubling you? I will leave then" said the bright orange light. But before the orange light could bring itself to safety, Chell had already grabbed it with her right arm, determined not to let go, even if a turret shot her. Chell unplugged the orange light to reveal, that it was a core. "Clever!" commented Wheatley.

The core had a orange/brown casing and an eye in the form of the Aperture logo.

"What are you doing?" asked the core.

"You are going to help us." replied Wheatley.

"How?" the core asked.

"Perform core transfer, please. I don't want the body, it feels weird, thanks." said Wheatley speaking to the system.

"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle" a voice answered, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

Chell went happily to the receptable and put the core in.

"WAIT! This is a big misunderstanding! I am a maintenance core! Wait!" screamed the core.

"Substitute core accepted." the voice was loud and clear.

"Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"I guess?" answered the core.

"Interpreting vague answer as YES. Mainframe Core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"No- wait, yes! Absolutely! To 100 percent! Yep! Totally!" Wheatley answered.

"Core transfer in process, please stand back."

"Wait a minute, I didn't start the lift! Wait wait! CANCEL! CANC- ARGHHHHGG!"

Both cores screamed. Just like with GLaDOS the core in the mainframe was thrown out and replaced.

"Err… what?" the core in charge asked.

"Wow. You put someone in charge who doesn't even know. Great." GLaDOS kept silent the whole time, but decided to speak now.

Chell and Wheatley went to the elevator.

"Core, would you please start the lift?" asked Chell as nice as she could.

"Okay. I do have a name though. Goodbye, weird strangers" the core said.

The elevator began going up.

"The name's Wheatley. Not weird strangers. And this is… Err what's your name?" Wheatley responded.

"Chell" she said.

"I hate all of you" GLaDOS hissed.

The elevator moved out of sight and in a few seconds the partners would see their new future.

* * *

A/N: This is my first time ever doing this! Please share your thoughts on the story! I am not a native english speaker, so if you see any grammar errors, please tell me!


	2. Remnants of the Union

_Chapter 2: Remnants of the Union_

With a hiss, the elevator came to a halt. The door to the outside world opened. Bright light blended the duo. After their eyes could adapt to the new environment, she took a few cautious steps, holding Wheatley tight to her chest.

"Wow! it's... it's nothing. I expected more." Wheatley said with disappointment. Chell let out a snort and began walking. It really wasn't much. It was a wheat field with nothing but the shed they came from. "Okay, actually, where should we go? Do you see anything? Wait, I have a brilliant idea!" shouted Wheatley, cheery as ever.

Chell felt so relieved. No panels, no voice from above mocking you, no artificial lights and the best part: it felt great to walk! Until now, Chell only walked on metal, concrete, glass or Hard Light Surfaces. This... dirt -she believed it was called- had a smooth feeling. She could walk on it forever, if she wanted to. To feel the floor even better, she strapped off her boots, dropped her portal device and hung her boots over her left shoulder, holding them in her left hand and Wheatley in the other, occasionally switching (Wheatley wasn't very light, after all).

"Okay, let's keep going err... South. Yes, south sounds great" Wheatley began talking again. "Well on a second thought. Where is south? What even is south?"

Chell wasn't sure either. But she didn't want to show Wheatley. She was Wheatleys only hope out here. He would've possibly gone mad if he had found out, that even SHE didn't have an idea.

After a 15 minute walk through nothing but wheat, they saw a forest. Behind the forest, a building, that looked like a dam, appeared. They could make out numbers and letters imprinted on the dam. "Thirtyfour. Or fourtythree. Ah no! Three and four! Ah I got it! Let's get closer!" Wheatley said, Chell could almost hear how proud he was, figuring that out.

"Wait" Chell answered. She could barely make out the words, but it looked like...

"Aperture..." Chell said with disgust in her voice. She's never going to set foot in there again. Aperture was a place where you would get lied to about cake, you'd get tested until you were exhausted and at the end killed off, for what? Science? All in all, it wasn't a good place. And that was an understatement. Wheatleys optic shrunk. He thought they would be in the clear after a 10 minute walk. He underestimated the size of Aperture so many times, but this time it was deprivating of his hope of ever getting out.

"But she's not in control anymore, it wouldn't be that bad." Wheatley said, trying to cheer himself and Chell up.

"I still don't want to" Chell argued.

"Yeah you're right. Let's go around it then. But just in case, we could always come back!" he replied, always trying to see the good things in everything -well- except in _her_.

They sat foot in the forest. A cold breeze flew by. You could hear a few birds chirping. The forest was a lot more humid and a lot colder. Chell didn't know where they had to be going exactly, but after Wheatleys logic, if they would walk around the earth once, they could always go another direction. Of course, his logic was flawed, but Chell didn't feel like pointing that out. Wheatley couldn't have known how big the earth actually is.

They came to a small puddle of mud. She saw footseps, that made her feel a little worried. In the mud were three tracks of footprints. Wheatley didn't notice, but Chell sure did. At one point, after about 7 minutes since the weird footprints, they saw a dead deer. It had several deadly impacts, like a drunk guy shot a firework at it on New Years Eve. 'But nobody would do that in a forest. And besides, maybe there aren't any humans left?' she thought to herself. Suddenly something struck her. A feeling in her guts she couldn't shake. Something was in the woods, and it was watching them. She didn't know why she had that feeling, but if she had learned something in Aperture, then it would be, that her guts never lied. She could tell something was off with _her_, after only 7 test chambers.

Then she suddenly heart footsteps. Heavy thumps, like a horse, but it sounded more like a horse with anvils tied to it's legs. She turned around and saw it, standing only several meters away from them.

It didn't look like an Aperture device. And it didn't look like an animal. It didn't even look like something from this world. The creature had three legs, 2 blue goggles on top if each other and a shiny blue skin, paired with a gray skin on some parts of the body. It had 2 antennas coming out if it's head. It let out a high synthetic screech and began charging at the duo.

Chell dropped on the floor, loosing grip of Wheatley. Wheatley screamed on impact. The creature began charging at Chell, but in the last moment turned to the defensless metallball and kicked it and played with it for a short time. Then it began focussing on Chell. The creature turned around and began shooting blue projectiles. Wheatley was right underneath the three-legged creature and screamed in panic. Chell dodged the projectiles to the left and ran towards the thing.

Before it could shoot again Chell had already slid under the creature, grabbed Wheatley and started running. The creature, however, followed. Wheatley panicked. He saw one person completely covered in gray standing only a few meters away from them. It looked human, but something was off. Even he could tell that.

They kept running, or to be more precise, she kept running and he kept screaming. Chell stumbled over a root but could catch herself. The creature kept screeching while running. It would only be a few moments until the creature would reach the duo.

The creature stopped, shivering for a short moment and then shot out a bunch of shrapnels with a light screech.

**Chell got hit.**

* * *

A/N: This chapter is a little short, sorry!


	3. A new friend

_Chapter 3: The new friend_

Chell stood there for a moment. She couldn't realize what had happened. She got shot. But how? She could survive Turrets, deadly lasers and a murderous AI, yet she failed to run away from one medium sized creature she didn't know. 'What will happen to me? What will happen to Wheatley?' she thought, before falling to the ground.

Wheatley lay there. He watched as Chell fell to the ground, not moving anymore. He was utterly helpless. Wheatley knew enough about humans to know that they are extremely fragile. 'Was she broken? Could she be fixed?' he thought. He saw how the creature turned around and limped away. He counted minutes, waiting for her to get up. He couldn't even move. He realized how dependant he really was. Maybe the outside world wasn't such a good idea after all.

After 16 minutes waiting someone appeared. The person had an orange-yellowish jumpsuit, red hair and red fingernails. 'Oh god, she has red fingernails. Is that blood? Is she a murderer? She is going to kill me, isn't she? OH GOD! _Whatdoidowhatdoido_… Okay, don't panic, act natural.' Wheatley thought, trying to calm himself, just like that time where he accidently awoke _her_.

The person came closer to Chell.

"**STOP!**" Wheatley screamed.

The person looked around. Wheatley immediately regretted his action. She wouldn't have noticed him. He could have lived forever. But now she was going to find him and murder them both. But after looking at the person more and comparing her to his database, he figured out, that she wasn't that strong. She probably couldn't even open a vault door if she wanted to.

The woman found Wheatley and gave him a short grin.

"Virgil?" she asked.

"No sorry, I am Wheatley. But if you said Wheatley, then maybe my audio processor is a little damaged, definetly need an engineer to fix that one. But if you said my name, then I'd be wondering where you know my name from…" Wheatley said, trying to be as cool as possible.

"Hey Wheatley, it is nice to meet you. My name is Mel. What are you doing out here?" the woman, now revealed to be called Mel asked.

"Err… nothing much, just relaxing. Being cool as always." Wheatley replied.

"You are relaxing… In front of a dead body…?" Mel asked suspiciously.

"WAIT SHE'S DE- yeah, yeah, totally. That's my thing. Good old Wheatley, staring at a corpse." Wheatley's façade crumbled (if there even was one to begin with).

"You need help, don't you?" Mel asked.

Wheatley nodded frantically, his optic looking everywhere but at Mel.

"So how did you get out?" Mel asked Wheatley while turning Chell around.

Mel gasped.

"Is she… A test subject?" Mel asked.

"Yes, a good one too. She's a good jumper, and listener, and err… puzzle solver. Yes. Puzzle solver…" Wheatley replied, while the last one gave him concerns, she would never need to solve puzzles anymore. The idea of not doing science still felt strange to Wheatley. After a short silence he asked: "Will she be alright?"

"Depends…" Mel answered, looking at Chells wounds.

"Depends on what? Lady, you better speak now! My only friend is possibly shutting down forever, please, I need to know!" Wheatley was getting anxious.

"Depends on how fast I can carry her home" Mel replied with a little smirk. She picked Chell up and said to Wheatley: "Stay here, I will come back to you!"

'Yeah, not like I could go away anywhere' Wheatley thought, a little annoyed. But he didn't want to anger the human. He knew how humans acted, when they were insulted, especially to a small defenseless robot. To them, he was just a code. You can't hurt code. It's all simulated. To Wheatley it felt real enough. He thought of the turrets and how they are suffering because of him. He almost felt bad, almost.

-x-

"Listen up Maintenance Core #2056" GLaDOS said "if you don't do what I say, you will regret every little circuit inside you. I will make sure of that."

GLaDOS was enraged. She lost her facility, her best test subject and her purpose in life, all because of that one little idiot. Oh, she was going to get her revenge.

Maintenance Core #2056, also known as Virgil anxiously looked through the room. This new body was a change. It's like suddenly growing a third arm. To him however, it felt like an [high number here] amount of arms being added. He hadn't said anything since the test subject C. [Redacted] and the ID Sphere had left the chamber. He was way too nervous for that.

"Do you hear me?!" GLaDOS shouted, it felt so embarrassing being the weak one. She was aware of the endless possibilities he had to kill her right now. But what was she going to do about it? Maybe she could find a way to hack him, or anything that could aid her in regaining the control of HER facility.

Virgil considered killing her. But it just felt wrong. He wouldn't kill someone. Not someone who was aware. AEGIS wasn't self-aware, he was only following protocols. And they were acting in self defense. But GLaDOS? Killing her would be a ruthless act. She would deserve it, yes… But he just couldn't do it.

-x-

Wheatley lay on the floor. It's been five minutes. "Maybe she won't come back" he said to himself "She probably saw how stupid I am and decided to leave me here. Selfish! They're always like this, aren't they? Oh, I am the important one! Look at me, look at me!" Wheatley mimicked Mels voice. "Okay, that was mean. But, it's been five minutes couldn't she hurry up? Please?" he begged.

Then he looked around and saw a small creature, that looked like a turkey without a head. 'How do I know what a turkey is?' he asked himself, but then he remembered that he watched an 'experiment' on turkeys before. He asked this one guy with the white robe and the knife many questions and he would answer half-heartedly. He didn't notice that though, until that man threatened him with the knife and asked him if he was oblivious to everything. That still did hurt Wheatley.

He came back to the reality. He was programmed to be only able to have a maximum of five tasks running at the same time. And having to run five tasks was really painful, so he'd only use three or four. That's why he didn't realize that the weird headless turkey began moving. Then it jumped at Wheatley with a screech, that sounded like a small saw or something like that. Wheatley screamed… It was on his optic! He began flailing around with his optic and his handles, but the creature kept tight. He sighed and kept waiting, maybe the creature would go away on it's own.

* * *

A/N: I'd like to thank you, AppleBagelUnicron, for your criticism! Thank you very much, to me as a new writer this really helps. Oh and I'm going to fix the corn field thing, thanks for notifying me :)


	4. Core Overheating

_Chapter 4: Core Overheating_

Wheatley kept waiting. Even after 3 hours, the creature didn't leave. He had enough time to come up with a good name for this creature. But he only came up with the name 'optic jumper'. He thought about his situation and everything that has happened until now. How he woke up the first time in Aperture, how he got fired from every job he ever had, how he was crushed and how they both escaped near death a couple of times. All of this was only for her to get shot in the back and ruin everything at the end.

Now what was he going to do? Mel still hasn't shown up. Maybe they're both _dead_? Wheatley realized in shock, that it wasn't that unlikely. What if that creature _-the one that hunted them-_ got her too? It was still out there… Wheatley worried. He had a bright idea. What if he could shock the optic jumper? He could then at least see if there was anyone around.

He tried everything, but the optic jumper kept tight. Suddenly he heard something in the distance.

"Call contact: parasitic"

The sentence was followed by a static sound.

Then the optic jumper got pulled away from him. He looked up. A person covered completely in gray looked down on him. The person was holding the optic jumper with his right hand. Then it dropped the optic jumper to the ground and stomped it several times. "Sector is clear." the person said. Wheatley looked at it. It was mostly gray/dark gray but on some parts blue. It wore a helmet with a gas mask on it. He wore worn down armor, yet you couldn't see the person's skin. Wheatley felt disturbed. He never had seen a human completely covered in clothes. Maybe it was a robot, it didn't feel human. Its motions were too strict.

"Overwatch, request reinforcement." the person repeated that phrase several times and then left.

Wheatley was freaked out. This wasn't how he had imagined the surface. Everything was trying to kill them. It was worse than Aperture. Maybe he should've stayed in _her_ body. He could've been better than _her_; he could've shown them all how great he was. They could've been great partners. But now she was probably dead, just like everybody else. A wave of dread came over Wheatley. What was he going to do?

But to his surprise, Mel returned. She gave him a short glance and then looked at the optic jumper.

"Did you do this? This wasn't there before, right?" she asked.

"You mean the optic jumper? No, that was a person in gray… Said something about 'watching over'. Not sure what he meant by that, to be honest." Wheatley replied.

"Whatever. Come here" Mel said, while picking Wheatley up.

"Wait, we need to take the boots!" Wheatley shouted.

Mel nodded and grabbed them.

"So where is your house?" Wheatley asked sheepishly.

"It's not really my house." Mel answered.

"Not your house? Isn't that forbidden?" Wheatley asked, a little panicky.

Mel laughed. "No, seriously, what if the police shows up?" Wheatley said, not understanding why she was laughing. But then Wheatley heard something. He panicked. 'Oh no, oh no, nonononono' his thoughts were racing. "RUN!" he shouted. Mel looked at him, obviously irritated. Why was this Core, she believed it was called, screaming? She turned around and saw a three-legged creature. Wheatley screamed: "This is the one that hunted us. **OH NO!** It will kill us! We are done for! This is it… this- is… it!" Wheatley closed his optic, accepting his fate. Mel wouldn't give up easily. She was an Olympian. She could run like hell, if she had to. The creature screeched and began running. It shot out a wave of shrapnels but Mel could easily dodge to the right. The creature reoriented itself looking for Mel.

Then it tracked her and started running again. Mel's arms were getting tired; soon she had to drop Wheatley if she wanted to live. She saw a fallen tree in her path and jumped over it. She wasn't the best in parkours, but she still could handle a jump over a tree. The creature, however, could not. It didn't see it coming and tripped over it, letting out a painful growl. Mel used this opportunity to get out of sight. She took a few turns left and right and then decided to get in cover. She frantically looked around. The only thing that could hide her was a bush of nettles.

She could hear the creature standing up and looking for her. 'Oh well, better than death' she thought and took a few fast steps towards the bush.

It hurt, everything hurt. She bit her tongue and squinted with her eyes, to prevent her from screaming in pain. The three-legged creature searched for the duo, but found nothing and walked away.

After five minutes Mel knocked on Wheatley's shell. "Are you awake?" Mel asked, but he didn't answer. His eyes kept shut. Mel got up and carried Wheatley and Chell's boots away, still hurting. After 20 minutes, they arrived at an old house. It was a small wooden house, with a ground floor and a black colored roof, housing an attic. Right next to it was a small empty garage. Mel entered through the front door. Chell was awake again, still feeling a bit numb. She stretched out her arms and yawned a little.

"Awake already?" Mel asked, putting Wheatley on the kitchen stove.

Chell nodded and went to Wheatley, taking a closer look at him.

"Are you okay?" Mel asked, pointing at Chells back.

Chell nodded again slowly. Mel sat down on a chair.

After a short silence Mel asked: "Do you talk?"

Chell cleared her throat and said: "Yes. But not to strangers."

"Oh, so you only speak when you know someone by name?" Mel asked, with a slight confusion.

Chell nodded again.

"Oh" Mel grinned. "Well, my name is Mel. It's nice to meet you."

"Mine's Chell, nice to meet you too." she answered.

"So, is he doing this regularly?" Mel asked, pointing at Wheatley.

"No…" Chell shook her head, sounding a bit irritated.

"Well, then I don't know what his problem is." Mel said, while opening an old newspaper about the 7 hour war.

Chell picked him up and took a look at him. She wasn't that much of a technician, but probably even the best technicians could not fully comprehend Aperture devices. Every machine in Aperture was kept as small as possible, yet in the bigger picture, they made a huge place, that not even the greatest megalomaniacs could ever imagine.

Nobody would understand, except an Aperture technician themselves. But they're all dead. And even if not, she wouldn't go in there at any cost. Or would she? Could she live without Wheatley? He was a great companion, but was his companionship worth it? She owed him, though. He was the one who came up with the plan with the turrets and the neurotoxin generator. As Chell looked at Weatley, she noticed smoke coming out of him. Something was wrong.

"Do you smell something burning?" Mel asked, still reading.

"Yes, him." Chell said, with a swallow.

Mel turned around and dropped the newspaper.

"We have to cool him down!" Chell screamed, while searching for water. Mel took a few big steps towards the stairs and came down only a few moments later, holding a bottle of water. She opened the bottle and emptied it over Wheatley.

"Hopefully, this didn't completely kill him" Mel said. They needed to find a way to fix him. _Somehow._


	5. Cold Boot

_Chapter 5: Cold Boot_

Wheatley was covered in a dark, cold void. No, he was _the void_. He guessed his system crashed. He had too many tasks running, but he wasn't sure. His system kept searching for a fix and that made it even worse. His processor was way too slow. And suddenly, Wheatley felt heat, from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But his thoughts were to slow. He didn't react to it. He felt it, but he just didn't care about it. He heard distant screams and then suddenly he felt water.

"Fix found… Rebooting…" a male voice announced.

Wheatley woke up. Mel looked at Wheatley and then turned around to Chell and shrugged with a sassy look on her face. Chell was way too amazed to notice.

"Wha- what…? Why are you looking at me? What happened?" Wheatley asked, very confused. He remembered being in a forest, seeing the creature again and then there was nothing.

"You know, I'm not sure either." Mel replied. "You just passed out in my arms…"

"But you can't pass out." Chell stated.

"Of course I can, look!" Wheatley replied. Then he shut his optic and stayed still. Mel laughed, Chell stared at him, dumbfounded. "That's not how that works" Mel said, trying to keep a straight face.

"You see, I can pass out." Wheatley said.

Chell didn't respond. She just stared.

"You have food?" she asked.

"I was about to get some, but then I found you…" Mel replied.

Chell sighed. "I- I'm sorry, maybe there's something in this house. I've only been here since yesterday, you know" Mel said, picking the newspaper up again. Chell began searching in and under cupboards, then she went up the stairs.

"Hey Mel, what are you looking at?" Wheatley asked. "I don't know either, something about a war and an administrator?" Mel replied. Wheatley: "Could you show me? Pick me up or something?" Wheatley asked. Mel took Wheatley, sat him down on his lap and showed the newspaper to Wheatley.

Wheatley played a clearing his throat sound "Extra Edition… Oh I love extras!" Wheatley said "THE TIMES EARTH surrenders" Wheatley read out. "Earth surrenders? To what?" Wheatley asked. "That's what I am worrying about too." Mel replied.

"**THE TIMES**

**EARTH surrenders**

On the th of , earth surrendered to the universal union. Former Black Mesa Administrator Dr. Wallace Breen was able to negotiate with the alien invaders and managed earths surrender. What Breen did to be able to negotiate with the invaders is not certain, however it is not important right now. This is the last edition of The Times, due to heavy employee loss and new circumstances." Wheatley read. Wheatley looked to Mel, thinking. "Well, err, you wonder if they are still alive?" Wheatley asked. Mel looked saddened. The last few days have been hard enough, knowing, that everyone she loved and knew were dead and that she left out a huge chunk of history. But until know, she only suspected she was alone, but had no proof. But knowing that even other people thought that made her stomach ache.

Wheatley observed. Something was with her face. It was twitching. He didn't know what to do. He looked for a protocol on human behavior, but all he could find was human interaction guides, designed for Aperture devices.

He opened one of them up about human emotions, skipped a little and read to himself. 'Is there water coming out of the humans face? If so, please watch their mouth. If there is a grin detectable, then they are probably crying while laughing, nothing is wrong there. If that is not the case and they make sniffing noises or something similar to that, please go to: A guide on comforting'

He opened the page.

'_Humans may experience extreme outbursts of negative feelings. As a personality core, you should always try your best to help humans._

HOW TO DETECT, IF A HUMAN IS SAD

_Note: not every human expresses their feelings the same way, however there are certain patterns you can see. If about 3 of the things in the list apply, please continue reading. If you are uncertain please open this page._

-They are talking about negative things or not talking at all

-Their face is twitching in weird ways and they blink a lot. This could mean that they are close to crying and want to stop themselves.

-There are tears coming out of their eyes. If you do not know what eyes or tears are, you can open this page about the anatomy of the human body.

-They want you gone. This doesn't have to be, because they are sad. They could be busy or simply annoyed by you. Please listen to the audio files to differentiate. Audio file a is a sad human, audio file b is an annoyed human and audio file c is a busy human. If audio file a is the case, you should disregard their advise and stay with them to comfort them.

-They look worried

Note: crying/being sad is not good for science and should be resolved quickly.

A GUIDE ON COMFORTING

-talk to the subject

-say good things about them and the future

-stay positive; do not let them make you sad

-listen and nod, if you can

-do something funny

If the human is still sad, try to look for someone more fitting for the job.'

'Okay, I can do this' he thought to himself, trying to reassure himself.

"So, uhhh, nice weather today, huh?" he let out in a high, nervous voice. She looked at him with a questioning face. "Had a bit of a brainwave and thought: Maybe, just maybe we could do something fun together. In the future, you know? Maybe, err, go shopping? Oh… wait, there are no shops anymore…" Wheatley said, getting more nervous. He was always making things worse.

Mel looked at him, saddened. 'What was he trying to do?' she thought, while trying to hold back tears.

"You know, you look beautiful today, if I may say so myself." Wheatley kept going.

Chell came down the stairs and looked at Wheatley angrily. She picked Wheatley up and threw him in a closet. Then she sat down right next to her and started comforting her. She wasn't the greatest in that, but Wheatley's attempt only made things worse, so in comparison, she would be way better for the job.

Wheatley was inside the closet. What did he do to deserve this?

"What was this all about?" he asked, but nobody answered. He couldn't see what was going on, Chell shut the door. "This treatment is sadistic! Throw me in here without reason! Oh, of course I can live in here forever, it's not like I need power to function. Wait… I need power to function…" Wheatley said, with a hesitation at the end. He checked his remaining power. There were about 97 percent remaining. 'This should be fine, he thought and waited.

After five minutes Chell picked Wheatley up again. "Sorry for that" she whispered. "You're not forgiven" he replied. Mel was doing better. "Hey, could you do me a favor and search for other humans?" Mel asked. "Who? Me?" Wheatley replied very confused, nobody ever wanted anything from him. She nodded. "Well, of course I can!" he replied.

Wheatley felt amazed. _Somebody finally needed him._

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading and the positive reviews! I try to atleast update once a week now (school began again)


	6. Transmission Received

_Chapter 6: Transmission Received_

Wheatley began looking for a signal of human life.

"Well, while I'm searching, why don't you tell your story or something?" Wheatley asked. Chell searched the room for something edible and found a can of beans in the fridge. She opened it and took a bite. She hated beans, but there wasn't anything better available. Mel thought for a while and then told Wheatley about her past, how she took part in the Olympics in Berlin, how she didn't get 2nd place, although she deserved it and how she signed up for this small test for the money and how that test had set her to sleep for way to long. She then kept talking about how she made it out of Aperture with the help of Virgil.

As Mel mentioned his name Chell shivered and looked up.

"Anyway, funny thing is, he thought the Olympics were in Nuremberg." Mel said with a laugh. Wheatley laughed too, but not for the same reasons. He was just happy he wasn't the only Aperture device that made such mistakes.

"So, what's your story, Chell?" Mel asked.

"Waked up in bed. Tested. Escaped. Defeated _her_. Got dragged back. Waked up in bed again. He woke _her_ up and escaped with him." Chell responded, being as brief as possible. Wheatley's optic shrunk as Chell mentioned how he woke _her_ up.

"Her? Who's her?" Mel asked. Chell didn't want to respond, she felt uncomfortable talking about her. Luckily for her, Wheatley responded with a huge flush of words coming from is speakers.

"_Her_. She… She's a monstrosity! She's cynical, sarcastic and well, she's just outright evil. You don't want to get in her way, especially if you're an android! Have you ever heard of Android Hell? I wasn't there, but I have heard stories… Bots suffering for their entirety of lives. And- and –keep in mind- they live forever! It's madness! Trust me, you wouldn't want to meet her!"

"What's her name?" Mel asked, with a serious glare.

"_GLaDOS_" Wheatley whispered. He didn't like to say this name, not at all.

Mel gulped. She did this, Virgil mentioned it, right? Since she was so selfish, GLaDOS got another shot at live.

"Where is she now?" Mel asked.

"Depends on what he did with her" Wheatley responded fast, without realizing his mistake.

"He?" Mel asked

"Uhh… I mean, what… uhh… it –the time- did? We left her behind." Wheatley responded with a nervous chuckle. He was a bad liar, but to his surprise, Mel believed it.

"Good. So, what is your story?" Mel asked.

"It all started long ago. In a black void thingy. You know, when you can't see and err… well, anyway. There I was, when suddenly I heard voices! I don't remember what they said, but that doesn't matter. Then –boom- LIGHTS! That was the first time when I used my visual processor. It will always have a special place in my… What do humans call it again? Heart, yes right."

"Well, anyway. So there were a couple of tall humans. All with beards and white coats. They looked at me with that face. You know, when they expect something from you. I've read it in a manual. Sorry, I'm drifting off. I was nervous, didn't know what to do. So I said hello. I'm still not sure how I knew how to talk."

Wheatley looked at Mel, waiting for a reaction. But she didn't say something, so he kept going.

"Then one of them asked me what my purpose was. I didn't know, so I just answered with: 'I don't know, tell me!'

But they didn't! They just wrote that down on their small notepads. Completely ignoring my question!"

"Do you know what they wrote down?" Mel asked.

"I think it was 'Core does not know purpose' or something like that. That's what one of them wrote down. He realized too late, that I could see what he was writing down! I don't know why, but these people were really secretive. That drove me insane! Then one of them said, he had seen enough and that I should be shut down. I immediately wanted to know why. I didn't want to get shut down again! I like seeing things, you know. Then I was gone again. This happened every week or so. People would meet up, ask me questions and then be disappointed. One day, I asked why they weren't happy with my answers, and one of them told me my purpose! I should make good ideas and present them to everybody I could find. Then, a couple days later they let me move on my rail, to test my abilities. I had so many great ideas! But the humans were so annoyed. That's what I don't understand about them. They tell you to do something, but if you do it, they are annoyed! Why?

I'm getting sidetracked again. Then there came this day… They plucked me in that cold robotic thing and told me to talk with it. So I did. But this thing just kept screaming. I don't know why, really. Wait… I just noticed something. I think that was her. It- it all makes sense now! They wanted me to talk with her, so she doesn't kill everybody. They just should've told me that! Now they're all bloody dead! Yes, that wasn't a nice day either. Humans smell, especially if they're de- Err… Did I just say humans smell? I meant they smell when they are dead. Sorry, how ruthless."

Mel could only laugh. What was wrong with these cores?

"So then I- wait. I just picked up a signal! From humans!" Wheatley shouted.

Chell looked up. She dozed off after she finished eating the beans.

"What is it?" Chell asked.

"See for yourself! Or hear for yourself…?" he replied

A female voice could be heard out of Wheatley's speaker saying: _"-is the 10th year since the defeat of the Combine! This day is the most important day in history, the day where the Combine fell by the hands of the Resistance, where people took control, where the Civil Protection disbanded itself and the transhuman soldiers and synths hid in the wasteland. We have Barney Calhoun on the line here, he fought the Combine in the Uprising and he is still fighting them today, until they are wiped out completely."_

_"That is right" a male voice responded._

_"So, Barney, tell us about the eradication process."_

_"It's getting harder to find people that are willing to help. They forgot how important the complete eradication is. If you see a combine synth, please contact us. We know there are still some of them out there and if they organize themselves we have a huge problem. Also, not every synth is hostile, keep that in mind. We receive several spam calls about synths everyday. Some of them could be integrated in our civilization, like Stalkers and dropships. However, we cannot undo the transformation."_

_"Thank you, could you please tell us something about the disappearance of Gordon Freeman? Why was it so sudden?"_

_"I am as clueless as you. Maybe he died, but I'm sure wherever he is he would be happy, knowing humanity made it."_

_"Very well said, many of our listeners here weren't alive in the Uprising. We do have twice as many children as adults since the Post-Combine Baby boom, as I'm sure you're aware."_

_"Yes, I am aware of that. How should I describe the Uprising…? Well, it was very-"_

"I lost the signal." Wheatley said.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, guys! I was busy with school and focused most of my free time with continuing my mod. Anyway, hope you enjoy!


	7. The Surprise

_Chapter 7: The surprise_

Mel sighed. There were so many questions in her head. But now she could and would not get an answer.

"Hey, didn't that person say that we should report something -err- unnatural? Well, let's do that if we see something!" Wheatley suggested.

"But we already did see something, didn't we?" Mel asked.

Chell nodded.

"Yeah well, let's do that then. But how? He didn't say how, did he?" Wheatley responded. Maybe he could tune in again. But his connection was too weak to reach anything.

He turned back on his radio, but didn't get anything. He expanded his search radius and waited.

Then suddenly, something responded.

* * *

-LOG: Aperture Science User Network Safety Regulation Sytem-

User [ID_Sphere] establishing connection. Allow?

y/n

-Y

Permission has been granted.

[ID_Sphere] connecting to server; 44 ms

preparing visual download of user [ID_Sphere]…

10%...18%...34%...56%...67%...89%...100% - done!

* * *

Virgil made sure everything was running smoothly under his control, that's why he checked on every new log, as soon as he could. He didn't have much else to do, but he felt like he was missing something. He felt something deep within him, which resonated with the whole facility. Somewhere there was an urge in him to do science, but he just didn't know how.

But he knew one thing: Science will be made.

If he could just get one test subject, maybe even two. If he just could get Mel back. But that was highly unlikely; she was probably not even in the reach of the facility.

Only a few meters next to him, while he wasn't watching out, GLaDOS, still bitter about losing, took the chance and accessed the Network Safety Regulation System. She didn't know what to do with it, but maybe she could transfer herself to something inside the facility. While she was looking through all the devices, she found something interesting. That little moron was still connected.

She was about to open his folder, when suddenly Virgil stopped thinking about science and regained focus.

"You aren't doing anything behind my back, are you?" he asked a little bit concerned.

"You know I am not capable of doing so, you cut my access to all the systems in the facility!" GLaDOS responded, although that wasn't true, she has regained access to the systems only 34 seconds after Virgil threw her out. He wasn't aware of all the backdoors Aperture's systems had, but she was.

"Huh, weird." He responded. He knew she was lying to him, she always was. But if she would try an attack, he could see it coming, digital miles away. She would not be able to harm him in anyway.

GLaDOS went back to the folders and looked at Wheatley's. She tried to open it, but needed a password.

A password? Since when were Aperture employees so secretive? He was probably one of the only cores that needed a password to access their files, let alone have any safety feature at all. Who would do this? Maybe she could find information on his change log. It wasn't protected, so she took a look at it. One name jumped in her face almost instantly. Doug Rattmann. She knew him, one of the only persons she could not catch, always one step ahead, due to his extreme paranoia. But that wasn't important now. She skimmed through the file and found a change that read out: "XX/XX/19XX – added password, you didn't have one ;)"

GLaDOS was upset. 'Who uses emoticons in a changelog? This is a huge company, it's the second best science company on the entire planet and the staff was using emoticons? They got what they deserved, so much is for sure.'

This info didn't help her though. If the system wouldn't want to let her in, then she was going to use brute force. She didn't have the capacities right now to let a program do the work, so she had to try herself. If that moron got his way around the facility with that tactic, so could she.

Password: ****** (Show password)

WRONG PASSWORD

Password: AAAAAB (Hide password)

WRONG PASSWORD

'This isn't going to work. What would an employee do?' she thought.

She tried several running gags, multiple loved ones names, but nothing good. Then she had an idea.

Password: The-cake-is-a-lie (Hide password)

ACCESS GRANTED

Although she heavily disagreed with that statement, knowing that there actually was a cake, she was glad it worked. She gained access to all of Wheatley's systems in mere seconds, camera, audio and microphone. He could only hide his thoughts now.

* * *

But Wheatley was unaware. He just browsed through Apertures network for information, but couldn't find anything. If he just tried hard enough, maybe then he could get some info.

He looked through old folders of Aperture employees, but they were way too dated to have anything actually helpful. Cameras were a bit entertaining to watch, tough. He watched old recordings of Chell's first escape to learn a bit more about her and watched other recordings made throughout Aperture. Aperture must have a huge storage space to save all these files, Wheatley realized in astonishment.

It was almost funny. It was such a huge space with usually no intelligent life form anywhere. In his first days, Wheatley was told, that humans were important for this place, since it couldn't maintain itself and that he should never harm a human because of that.

'Oh were they wrong' Wheatley thought. It was a bit amusing for him. These humans weren't the nicest to him, except one or two. He still knew the name of one that actually treated him nice. Anna. Maybe he could look through the employee database? He has long forgotten his task and was way more interested in learning about Aperture. He typed in Anna, and found 124 results. He didn't know her last name, so that made it a bit harder. He skimmed the profiles and was about to open the last one, when suddenly a voice appeared inside his head.

"Hello again, moron."


End file.
